I love making these medallions or plaques and my favorite and yet scariest part is the coloring portion. Many times when I'm working with metal, I find that I get to a point where it looks just right except for one small thing and then when I go to fix that, I mess up something that I really liked and I have to start all over. I love how easy it is to just keep adding more color until I find just the right blend and I will eventually end up with something that feels perfect!
For this project, I started with my Alcohol inks and here I worked with two colors (bottle and stream).
I did some sanding to calm the camouflage effect and this is something that I do frequently during the coloring process. The raised areas would typically see the most abuse as well.
The colors were a little too fake for me so I started to play around. I added a bit of gold Inka Gold and some blue as well as my gobs of Black alcohol ink strategically placed in the divots. I also dry brushed on some Blue Inka Gold for effect.
I played around with more alcohol ink and added some of the Terra Cotta color to the mix.
My favorite part of this entire process is the rubbing and buffing. I keep an old cloth near by for this and you will be amazed at how nicely the Inka Gold starts to shine when buffed. This is also the case on paper.
Here's one of my favorite tips of all. You know when you use alcohol ink that it will be hard to clean of your craft mat after. I keep a bottle of the 'Copic Marker Colorless Blender' on hand just for cleaning. Only a few drops on your mat and it will remove alcohol ink easily. The other thing that it cleans really well are your acrylic blocks that are stained with Staz-on ink.
The full image of the card that I made with this and another card using similar techniques are posted on the store blog. http://www.scrapbookersparadise.blogspot.ca/
Hope you enjoyed,
Your playing around was worth the final result. Love the colour tones you achieved!!
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